20 days. 20 days until we head off on our grand adventure. I have the tendency to live fully in the present moment. Which on the one hand is great. But there are some drawbacks to it as well, like not being able to sense what’s about to happen; I just have to wait until it does. I also have to be very intentional about reflecting on the past and planning for the future. Reflecting comes pretty naturally to me because of my background in Jesuit spirituality, and don’t get me wrong, I love planning. But my wife is definitely the one who has been keeping us on track for this one. She’s been great at looking ahead and setting deadlines for us. She has it all planned out: when our website will be up and running, when we’ll make our instagram and facebook pages public, how many meditations and blogs I need to write before then…I’m happy to say that although these tasks are listed out and dated, there isn’t anything I’d rather be doing with my time. I’ve been waiting so long to have an outlet for my creative expression, that starting this business is the biggest treat.
I’ve recently been going through a box of letters from high school and college. Before we move out of our apartment and put all of our stuff in storage, we are doing our best to get rid of things that we won’t need in the future. I have to say that letters are one of the hardest things for me to let go of. And that’s for two reasons: Number one, I get very nostalgic. And number two, some of these letters are the last thing I have of a person. A couple of years ago, my best friend from high school and I had a bit of a falling out. Our broken relationship is one of the biggest wounds in my heart. But the truth is, we grew apart, we changed. Neither one of us is the person we want the other person to be. Although I would love to reconcile with her, my heart knows that this is a person I just have to learn to let go of. How do I recycle her words of love? Her affirmations of the impact I had on her life as I recognize the impact she had on mine? Detachment. It’s such a hard practice, but is one of the themes that will consistently come up in our lives-especially during times of transition.
Going through these letters as we get ready for our big leap gives me the opportunity to reflect back on the many twists and turns on my life path, and to recognize that this is just another curve. Every ending is truly a new beginning. And everything that came before this moment was perfect because it’s what led me here. Here, filled with love from my beautiful wife and close friends. And now that I’ve been filled, I have, we have, the opportunity to go out into the world and share that love.
These next couple weeks will be filled with emotions-joy, gratitude, sorrow, grief, and everything in between. And so, we will be practicing detachment. And in 20 days when we drive away from this beautiful place that we’ve called home for the past 4 years, we will take a breath in for gratitude and a breath out to let go of everything that has been.